If only the bookies took wagers on political disasters. Why, you'd find me standing at the cashier's desk with my life's savings in one hand and a betting slip in the other with one word written upon it: Decentralisation. Joe Humphreys writes.
Now, it so happens that I'm married to one of the 10,500 Dublin-based civil servants who have been earmarked for relocation to country constituencies with a Fianna Fáil/PD presence. But that fact hasn't given me any insider information on why decentralisation is an expensive cock-up in the making.
Any observer can see the warning signs: a grand announcement at a time when the Exchequer was flush with money; a direct linking of the plan to electioneering by the coalition parties; and a gritty determination to plough ahead despite rapidly rising costs, a looming industrial relations crisis, and so on.
There are three very simple questions which the Government has yet to answer: (a) How much will decentralisation cost? (b) How will it be implemented without creating inefficiencies and undermining the work of relocating State agencies and departments? and (c) What will happen to employees who opt to stay in Dublin?
Tom Parlon, "the Minister of State with responsibility for decentralisation", is already buying up buildings, or, as he likes to call them, "property solutions", around the country - this despite the fact that the Government has no idea how many civil servants will agree to move.
The parallels with the electronic voting fiasco are uncanny - only instead of being left with dud technology, the taxpayer is likely to be left with a dodgy property portfolio, funded in part by the sell-off of some of our most prestigious State buildings.
In response to question (a), Parlon last October gave a figure of €815 million for the acquisition of offices alone. Two months later, however, the Office of Public Works said housing a mere 3,500 decentralised civil servants would cost €900 million over the next four years.
This figure, of course, excludes any redundancy payments or relocation money which civil servants will undoubtedly demand, not to mention the possible recruitment of thousands of additional State employees to fill vacant posts.
The Association of Chief Executives of State Agencies claims more than 2,000 public servants may have a case for constructive dismissal. If successful, the employees could cost the State €400 million.
Such estimates may be exaggerated. But what is clear is that the public service unions have the Government over a barrel, and they know it. How else can you explain the demand from members of the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants for a voluntary severance package with "a minimum of 10 added years service" for civil servants remaining in Dublin after their jobs have moved elsewhere?
Re question (b), consider the record of politically inspired decentralisations. In October 1998 the then Fianna Fáil minister of state with responsibility for forestry, Hugh Byrne, announced that the Forest Service would move to his Wexford constituency. During the move the service lost 90 per cent of its staff, and new employees with "no experience or knowledge" of the sector moved in to manage day-to-day affairs, according to a Comptroller and Auditor General report.
The result? A multimillion euro computerised mapping project, on which the service had been working, rapidly fell into mismanagement. The eventual collapse of the project - which had cost €9.2 million by the end of 2002 - was a "direct or indirect" result of decentralisation, the report stated.
What safeguards are being put in place to avoid a similar waste of public funds in the relocation of no less than 19 State agencies and eight departments? Neither Parlon nor any Government Minister has provided an answer.
As for (c), the question perhaps of most concern to decentralising employees, the Minister of State has given a reply of sorts. It is a reply of the two-fingered variety.
While he claims decentralisation is "voluntary", Parlon recently slated civil servants who think "they are so special that they can't be moved, or they can't be somewhere else, in this day and age". In an interview with RTÉ he also accused the public service unions of failing to "engage" with the Department of Finance when those same unions have for months been seeking in vain to get details on what would happen to employees who opt to stay in Dublin.
Could Parlon himself explain what would happen to, say, ordnance survey mappers who chose not to move to Dungarvan? "That," he said, "is an issue for the Minster with responsibility for Ordnance Survey and for the chief executive of Ordnance Survey."
Take note of the reply because it will be used again if Parlon is asked to appear before the Dáil Committee on Public Accounts to be questioned on how the OPW spent tens of millions of euros on a vacant building in Co Waterford (as is quite likely) because Ordnance Survey staff decided to stay in Dublin.
In fact, Parlon's passing of the buck is the surest indicator that decentralisation will end in disaster. Despite his title, the Minister of State is not responsible for decentralisation. He is the junior Minister with responsibility for spending Exchequer funds on "property solutions" for an ill-defined plan that has no obvious benefit for the taxpayer.
Just who is responsible for the scheme is unclear. Parlon will be happy to reap any political reward for his work, particularly in his own constituency of Laois-Offaly (where, incidentally, Fás are moving into a building that has doubled in price since it was evaluated).
But when decentralisation unravels into one of the most costly political follies of modern times - as it is shaping up to do - Parlon will blame everyone but himself: Government Ministers, department secretary generals, State agency chief executives and, most of all, those oh-so-special public service employees.
You can bank on it.